Summer Learning on a Winter Day

I was one of those kids who loved school. Luckily, I was blessed with a handful of dedicated teachers, one whose address I mean to track down so I can write him a thank you note. He gave up his lunches to teach me one-on-one. Each afternoon, we sat next to each other, our brown bags open and sandwiches out as he went over the formulas and concepts we were learning in class. I'm convinced that without the time he graciously gave, algebra would just be a word I know and not a tool I can manipulate. But regardless of my teachers and their skill sets, some lessons were just better learned in the summer. After all, no matter how much you like your biology teacher, there's reading about an ecosystem in a textbook and there's hiking out into the woods in your backyard, taking your shoes off, and stepping into an ecosystem while watching the water beetles swim by your ankles.



Summer contains one more key component to learning: boredom. Nothing spurs creativity faster than boredom. As it turns out, snow days contain their fair share of boredom, too - boredom that leads to exploration, especially when mama is busy trying to get a certain little brother to sleep. And so, yesterday with mama preoccupied Audrey went exploring. By the time I returned to the kitchen, she had collected a piece of Tupperware, a toy fish, and some ice from the back porch step. She was creating a pond (a frozen one at that) for the fish. She tossed the ice and fish into the Tupperware and added some water. She watched the ice melt in the water as the fish "swam".



Then she gathered a large aluminum mixing bowl, a plastic colander, measuring cups, a spatula, potato masher, more ice (of course), and hand soap. She commenced with giving the fish a bubble bath, dunking him in and out of measuring cups and moving him with the aid of the spatula and potato masher. That's when something magical happened. She realized that the fish (that has a magnet inside of it) stuck to some surfaces but not others. A little science lesson ensued - the most basis of lessons about magnets. Magnets stick to metal. Magnets do not stick to plastic, glass, wood, silicone, or little brothers. The fish swam and Audrey passed an icy afternoon learning by touch at the kitchen table.



Apparently, the lesson, ahem, stuck. This morning Audrey figured out how to get a magnet to stick to her, so she could become a magnet, too. You just have to smile at boredom and the lessons she brings on dreary days.

Rainy Day Projects

Today I woke up to the sound of rain and thoughts of making chicken noodle soup. From the first hours, today was a day that seemed to want to take its time, and in accordance, meant for us to take our time. What better day to begin a project: something a bit meticulous and time-consuming, out of materials soft-to-the-touch, for the purpose of being used on other slow, rainy days?

Some of my favorite memories revolve around the one rainy day that seemed to befall my family every summer on our vacation to one of Kentucky's lakes. The usual outdoor activities put on hold, my grandmother would round up my willing sisters and cousins and we would play Scrabble, tucked safely beneath a covered outdoor patio. As we tried to best one another on the game board, the rain fell just feet away, strong and steady, most times not letting up until late in the day. Until this moment, I had never stopped to think about what a gift that rain was, driving us all in from the damp to the warmth that was my grandmother.

Audrey is not quite ready for Scrabble. But she does seem primed to be introduced to her letters. Lately, she has learned what constitutes an identical match. We don't own the game Memory (another favorite from childhood), but I think Audrey could master its concept. So today, armed with a ridiculous pile of felt, a needle threaded with some embroidery floss, and a rainy day, I got to work making our own Memory game of sorts.

I found a font I liked on the computer, typed the alphabet, increased the size to 150% and printed the letters out. After cutting them out, I used them as pattern pieces to cut the letters out of my felt. Then, I cut out squares, a dark gray square for the back of each game piece (shown below) and varied colored squares to be used for the fronts. Of course, each piece has to be made twice. I embroidered the letters onto the fronts before pairing them with a back and stitching them up the sides. (I realize that we'll end up with 52 pieces, which may seem like a bit much for a 2-year-old, but I figure we can use them a few pieces at a time, concentrating on just the letters we want to focus on that week). Due to nature of the project (all hand work) and the interruptions for tickle fights, cuddling on the couch, and making and eating chicken noodle soup, I finished just one game piece. This seemed like such a simple task when it first occurred to me. I suppose I should be a little discouraged. But as I type, hearing the dog snore under the table near my feet, it seems like - well, that sort of day.

Can You Find The Circle?

Do you remember this February walk I took with Audrey? Well, I have a confession to make. I had meant to take her to the zoo that day. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those put-together moms with an accurate planner and spare wipes in the car. Had I been one of those moms, I would have checked the Internet before leaving the house and discovered that the zoo is closed on Tuesdays during the winter months. Once at the closed zoo, I had to come up with an alternate plan for the afternoon - quick. I opted for a walk along a path close by and invented a little game unimaginatively called "Can You Find the Circle?" As Audrey and I walked, we searched for circles: those occurring naturally (the bottom side of a pinecone, a hole in some limestone) and manmade versions (a clock face and a "no swimming" sign). At some point, I began taking pictures of the circles we found. This made Audrey even more determined to find circles. Every once in a while, being a non-planner works in my favor. This accidental day turned out to be one of my favorite afternoons that we've spent together. It has inspired many more days filled with circle hunting and picture gathering. We've amassed quite the collection of digitally-captured circles. This morning we sat down with our artwork.





I found a bound book with blank pages that has been hanging around since my childhood. I think I bought it for myself at a gift shop while on some family trip. I'm sure I had some great idea in mind for what that book would become when I bought it, but obviously that idea never came to fruition. Today, we finally gave that book a job. (For those of you interested in a similar project, but unable to find bound books with blank pages, I found a tutorial on how to make them here).

We decided to create a photo journal of the shapes we find. First, I developed mini prints of our circle pictures. I backed them with colored cardstock. Then, Audrey used double-sided tape squares to attach the pictures to the book's pages, ordering them any way she liked.

Of course, we only made a couple of pages before she decided it was time to move on to other things, like running around (who can sit still for long when we're on the cusp of Spring?). But I have a feeling that we'll be back to it soon, adding new pictures, new shapes, and memories of many walks yet to come. Looks like this book just might be destined for something great, after all.

Fashionably (or Just) Late

The great thing about 2-year-olds is they don't live by their calendars. When you pull out their just-completed Valentine's Day gift on February 23rd, they don't whip out their palm pilots, pull up their calendars, and give you a smug look that says, "what took you so long?" They take the gift, smile, and start to play. At least, that was the response from my 2-year-old when I presented her with her new puzzle game at breakfast this morning.

Audrey loves puzzles. She can also count to ten (occasionally - and sometimes frequently - leaving out the number eight). Lately, number books have been a big hit, especially one she received from her Grammy for Christmas. I've noticed that most of the books show the number spelled out (five), the numeric number (5), and a picture of some objects whose number corresponds with the numeric and spelled out number (5 balls). The book from Grammy takes things one step further with numbered buttons on a side panel that say the number when you push them. Audrey has started to master pushing the right numbered buttons, but each number is written in a separate color, so I don't know if she recognizes the numbers or is just matching the up the colors and shape of the numeric numbers. Also, most of the number books we have use different objects to illustrate the numbers on each page.

I started thinking about how I could simplify the idea of matching numeric numbers up with counted objects and came up with the idea of these Valentine puzzle pieces. Now, the colors and objects are the same, so the only thing that makes one puzzle coupling different from the rest is the numeric number and number of hearts. The puzzles are made out of a medium-thickness cardboard box that used to house a yoga mat, but more recently found itself on top of the to-be-recycled heap. I traced some puzzle pieces we already own onto the cardboard then used an exacto knife to cut them out. I painted them white using two coats of acrylic paint left over from another project then used red acrylic paint to freehand the numbers and hearts (again, two coats). I thought of this project at the beginning of February, when it seemed like it would take a week, tops, to carve out niches of time to complete it. I finally finished it at 10 pm last night. What can I say, turns out I'm not a speed demon with the exacto knife or paintbrush. Luckily, two-year-olds don't care.